There’s lots of hay being made by the usual romminesque flaming bloggers, some news outlets and the like, over my disagreement with the way data was handled in one of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) papers, the only one I got to review before yesterday’s media blitz. Apparently I’m not allowed to point out errors, and BEST isn’t allowed to correct any before release, such as the six incorrectly spelled citations of the Fall et al 2011 paper I pointed out to BEST a week earlier, which they couldn’t be bothered to fix.
And then there’s the issue of doing a 60 year study on siting, when we only guaranteed 30. Even NOAA’s Menne et al paper knew not to make such a stupid mistake. Making up data where there isn’t any is what got Steig et al into trouble in Antarctica and they got called on it by Jeff Id, Steve McIntyre, and Ryan O’Donnell in a follow on peer-reviewed paper.
But I think it’s useful to note here (since I know some other bloggers will just say “denier” and be done with it) what I do in fact agree with and accept, and what I don’t. They wanted an instant answer, before I had a chance even to read the other three papers. Media outlets were asking for my opinion even before the release of these papers, and I stated clearly that I had only seen one and I couldn’t yet comment on the others. That didn’t matter, they lumped that opinion on one I had seen into an opinion on all four.
What I agree with:
- The Earth is warmer than it was 100-150 years ago. But that was never in contention – it is a straw man argument. The magnitude and causes are what skeptics question.
- From the BEST press release “Global Warming is real” …see point one. Notably, “man-made global warming” was not mentioned by BEST, and in their findings they point out explicitly they didn’t address this issue as they state in this screencap from the press release:
- As David Whitehouse wrote: “The researchers find a strong correlation between North Atlantic temperature cycles lasting decades, and the global land surface temperature. They admit that the influence in recent decades of oceanic temperature cycles has been unappreciated and may explain most, if not all, of the global warming that has taken place, stating the possibility that the “human component of global warming may be somewhat overstated.”. Here’s a screencap from that paper:
- The unique BEST methodology has promise. The scalpel method used to deal with station discontinuity was a good idea and I’ve said so before.
- The findings of the BEST global surface analysis match the finding of other global temperature metrics. This isn’t surprising, as much of the same base raw data was used. There’s a myth that NASA GISS, HadCRUT, NOAA’s, and now Berkeley’s source data are independent of one another. That’s not completely true. They share a lot of common data from GHCN, administered by NOAA’s National Climatic Data. So it isn’t surprising at all they would match.
What I disagree with:
1. The way they dealt with my surfacestation data in analysis was flat-out wrong, and I told them so days ahead of this release. They offered no correction, nor even an acknowledgement of the issue. The issue has to do with the 60 year period they used. Both peer-reviewed papers on the subject, Menne et al 2010, and Fall et al 2011 used 30 year periods. This is a key point because nobody knows (not me, not NOAA, not BEST) what the siting quality of weather stations was 30-60 years ago. Basically they did an analysis on a time period for which metadata doesn’t exist. I’ve asked simply for them to do it on 30 years as the two peer reviewed papers did, an apples-to-apples comparison. If they do that and the result is the same, I’m satisfied. OTOH, they may find something new when done correctly, we all deserve that opportunity.
Willis Eschenbach points out this quote from the paper:
We evaluate the effect of very-rural station siting on the global average by applying the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature averaging procedure to the very-rural stations. By comparing the resulting average to that obtained by using all the stations we can quantify the impact of selecting sites not subject to urbanization on the estimated average land temperature.
He adds: That seems crazy to me. Why compare the worst stations to all stations? Why not compare them to the best stations?
2. The UHI study seems a bit strange in its approach. They write in their press release that:
They didn’t adequately deal with that 1% in my opinion, by doing a proper area weighting. And what percentage of weather stations were in that 1%? While they do have some evidence of the use of a “kriging” technique, I’m not certain is has been done properly. The fact that 33% of the sites show a cooling is certainly cause for a much harder look at this. That’s not something you can easily dismiss, though they attempt to. This will hopefully get sorted out in peer review.
3. The release method they chose, of having a media blitzkrieg of press release and writers at major MSM outlets lined up beforehand is beyond the pale. While I agree with Dr. Muller’s contention that circulating papers among colleagues for wider peer review is an excellent idea, what they did with the planned and coordinated (and make no mistake it was coordinated for October 20th, Liz Muller told me this herself) is not only self-serving grandiosity, but quite risky if peer review comes up with a different answer.
The rush to judgment they fomented before science had a chance to speak is worse than anything I’ve ever seen, and from my early dealings with them, I can say that I had no idea they would do this, otherwise I would not have embraced them so openly. A lie of omission is still a lie, and I feel that I was not given the true intentions of the BEST group when I met with them.
So there you have it, I accept their papers, and many of their findings, but disagree with some methods and results as is my right. It will be interesting to see if these survive peer review significantly unchanged.
One thing we can count on that WON’T normally be transparent is the peer review process, and if that process includes members of the “team” who are well versed enough to but already embracing the results such as Phil Jones has done, then the peer review will turn into “pal review”.
The solution is to make the names of the reviewers known. Since Dr. Muller and BEST wish to upset the apple cart of scientific procedure, putting public review before peer review, and because they make this self-assured and most extraordinary claim in their press release:
That’s some claim. Four papers that have not been peer-reviewed yet, and they KNOW they’ll pass peer review and will be in the next IPCC report? Is it just me or does that sound rigged? Or, is it just the product of an overactive ego on the part of the BEST group?
I say, if BEST and Dr. Muller truly believes in a transparent approach, as they state on the front page of their website…
…let’s make the peer review process transparent so that there is no possibility of “pal review” to ramrod this through without proper science being done.
Since Dr. Muller claims this is “one of the most important questions ever”, let’s deal with it in an open a manner as possible. Ensuring that these four papers get a thorough and non-partisan peer review is the best way to get the question answered.
Had they not made the claim I highlighted above of it passing peer review and being in the next IPCC report before any of that even is decided, I would never think to ask for this. That overconfident claim is a real cause for concern, especially when the media blitzkrieg they launched makes it difficult for any potential review scientists to not notice and read these studies and news stories ahead of time, thus becoming biased by media coverage.
We can’t just move the “jury pool” of scientists to the next county to ensure a fair trial now that is been blathered worldwide can we?
Vote on it:
Otter17: That brings up a good point. I guess the datasets themselves are vindicated from accusations of manipulation now?
**********************************************************************************************************
I would say so. If the Berkeley project confirms and replicates that the HadCrut, NASA and NOAA temperature reconstruction are scientifically credible, then I presume the AEU scientists, Phil Jones, and Michael Mann are owed apologies. Their temperature reconstructions are consistent with the reconstruction the Berkley team did. And the Berkley team had the blessings of prominent skeptics.
BTW, regarding the claim that skeptics “knew all along” that the temperature reconstructions were showing global warming, and that their only objection was with regard to attribution, here’s another gem. This recent “knew all along” assertion, sadly, just isn’t cutting it.
*************************************************************************************************************
Joeseph Daleo and Anthony Watts, 2010
“Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that IT CANNOT BE CREDIBLY ASSERTED THERE HAS BEEN ANY SIGNIFICANT “GLOBAL WARMING” IN THE 20TH CENTURY.”
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/surface_temp.pdf
peter stone’s reading comprehension appears to be almost non-existent. He seems to believe that “significant” means zero. The planet has naturally warmed over the past century and a half, from 288K to 288.8K. That is hardly significant.
The planet has been warming along the same trend line since the LIA. There has been no acceleration in the warming trend, despite a ≈40% increase in [harmless, beneficial] CO2. What does that tell you?
Perhaps we need an FOIA request to Berkeley asking for any emails between members of the BEST team and the IPCC or any representives of the IPCC concerning inclusion of these papers in the next IPCC report.
peter stone says:
October 22, 2011 at 11:49 am
You continue to miss the point that BEST pulled a Bait and Switch using a 60 year record instead of Anthony’s 30 year record. They did not address the station siting issue which is the topic that Anthony was talking about.
The Earth is warmer than it was 100-150 years ago. But that was never in contention – it is a straw man argument. The magnitude and causes are what skeptics question.
———-
Well I have seem lots of commenters say that there has been no warming at all. But of course that is no indication of the proportion of climate skeptics who do actually believe that. They are just the noisy ones.
I am of the view that the many attempts to discredit both these temperature series and the scientists who produced them was based on this belief.
I think it’s time to find out what proportion of climate skeptics do actually believe the world has been warming over the 200 year instrumental record period. I think one of Anthony’s web surveys is the best approach.
Multiple choice of course. Something like:
1. Are you a climate skeptic yes/no
2. What temperature unit do you prefer C/F
3. Do you believe the temperature fall/rise over the last 200 years has been: -1.0/-0.75…….. 0.75/1.0 degrees celcius (unit changes depending answer to previous question)
4. What country do you live in?
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology, http://www.bom.gov.au, has a set of “high quality sites” http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/hqsites/ some of which are classified as urban. “Urban sites have some urban influence during part or all of their record, hence are excluded from the annual temperature analyses.“.
Unfortunately, I could not find a list of the “high quality sites”, only a map with them marked on it, so it would be quite time-consuming to find out just which these stations all are. I went through just the ones in Western Australia as that is the largest state by area. Here are the ones not classified as urban, ie. the ones that are not excluded from the annual temperature analyses:
Derby Aero 3032
Broome Airport 3003
Halls Creek Airport 2012
Port Hedland Airport 4032
Roebourne 4035
Marble Bar Comparison 4020 closed 2006
Newman Aero 7076
Carnarvon Airport 6011
Giles Meteorological Office 13017
Meekatharra Airport 7045
Geraldton Airport 8051
Kalgoorlie-Boulder Airport 12038
Southern Cross 12074 Ceased temp. obs. 2007
Merredin 10092
Kellerberrin 10073
York 10311
Rottnest Island 9193
Wandering 10917
Cape Naturaliste 9519
Jarrahwood 9842
Bridgetown Post Office 9510
Katanning Comparison 10579
Esperance 9789
Cape Leeuwin 9518
Albany Airport 9741
28 stations. 10 at airports. 1 at a Post Office (Post Offices are typically near the centre of a town). 2 now closed.
Not very encouraging.
And it is likely that many of the others would be decidedly non-rural. For example Katanning Comparison 10579 – here is a Google Map centred on the given location of the site:
http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/GoogleEarth_10579_Katanning.jpg
(downloaded in January 2011).
How on earth can BOM claim that the airports, the post office, and stations like Katanning 10579 do not have “urban influence during part or all of their record“?
PS. All the Google maps I downloaded in Jan 2011 are in here: http:\\members.westnet.com.au\jonas1\RSelectedStationsGoogleMaps.pdf (large file 10.7mb). 8 of them are in the above list (3003, 4020, 12038, 12074, 10073, 9510, 10579. 9518). There were only 3 of these which could be classified as rural (4020, 10073, 9518).
PPS. I don’t know whether these BOM sites were used by BEST, but it does seem likely.
LazyTeenager says:
October 22, 2011 at 6:04 pm
[survey]
In the abstract a good idea.
But before starting, you have to define what “warming” is.
I am, for example, not the one who disputes a little temperature increase over the last 200 years, but I rather prefer to call it a little fluctuation.
It’s the alarmists, who seem not to be able to look over the rim of a tea cup. For most of them, it even seems, Earth hasn’t existed way back before those 200 years.
For example, if you take the Vostok ice core temperature proxy, you’ll notice a trend by -0.3°C for the beginning of the holocene period until now.
It’s merely a point of view, and in alarmist’s case of a certain (cherrypicked) period of 200 years of steady incline. The 200 years before that 200 years were warmer and declining.
Overall however, there was not much change in temperature.
That’s why I can’t understand that whole anxiety.
It’s simply mother nature at work.
typo in my last comment – 25 stations not 28.
Mike Jonas says:
October 22, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Mike, you can freely download the GHCN v3 data here
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/
(ghcnm.tavg.latest.qca.tar.gz)
and look for your stations.
For Katanning WMO #94629:
50194629000 -33.6800 117.5500 311.0 KATANNING 324R -9HIxxno-9x-9WARM FOR./FIELD B
It is a (R)ural station, and it seems, they don’t know the population. According to that data, it is not at an airport, the surrounding vegetation type is WARM FOR./FIELD and suburban by satellite night lights.
If that doesn’t meet the reality, feel free to contribute all abnormal stations to Peter O’Neill’s project. He would appreciate each helpy hand.
https://oneillp.wordpress.com/2011/08/20/are-you-acquainted-with-any-of-these-ghcn-stations/
It’s the chicanery. The AGW crowd never seems to be able to conduct everything above board and let the science lead discussion. They just can’t let go of the tricks. Makes me willing to double down on spreading the properly skeptical message.
We simply can’t have those who know what’s best for us, running the show.
Rhys Jaggar at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/21/best-what-i-agree-with-and-what-i-disagree-with-plus-a-call-for-additional-transparency-to-preven-pal-review/#comment-774688
“My Tamblyn
Having read your highly informative discussions at the weblink in your post, would you indicate to the readers here if any analysis of ‘average of anomalies’ takes place AFTER discontinuities of anomalies in any individual station records have been taken into consideration.”
Rhys, I would assume that all processing happens after discontinuities in station records have been considered. Either because such a discontinuity has been identified and perhaps some correction applied to acount for say a change in altitude of the station. Or the station was rejected from the record because of the discontinuity. Or because the possible discontinuity has not been noticed and made its way into the record.
Of your 3 examples, 1 & 2 are things you would hopefully find and resolve in some way. Case 3, rapid climate change AT THAT STATION is something we would want to include. If that station saw a rapid real climate change then that is something we want to include in the analysis.
As to stress testing the data, a number of individuals one the net such as Tamino have done just that, taking the unadjusted data from GHCN and the adjusted data and comparing the results. No significant difference. This post at SkS has links to quite a range of independent studies looking at temp records. http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface-temperature-measurements-advanced.htm A range of people have looked at aspects of this question quite independently. Follow the links to see what others say.
To your alternative possible scenarios
1. ‘That it has little if any effect’. This is what I would expect because I would expect the various impacts of all sorts of faults in the data record to be at least substantially random and thus tend to cancel out.
2. ‘it has a significant effect in explaining away the increase in the ‘global temperature index’. This seems very unlikely to me for 2 reasons. First for the reason I gave in case 1. And secondly, the ‘global temperature index’ is land and ocean and 70% of the earth is ocean so any problems with land based data only impacts 30% of the index anyway.
3. For the same reasons I wouldn’t expect that any ‘issues’ would add a cooling bias either. []
Oops, Copy & Paste error. Ignore the last 2 lines.
Is it right that the essence of trhe Berkely findings is that the rural and urban sites have been warming at a sinilar rate and so it is assumed that UHI effects are not a significant factor for determining the direction and rate of the temperature trend ?
Well, if so, how about the proposition that the incremental rate of nearby development is on average the same for both rural and urban sites ?
Wouldn’t that produce just such an outcome ?
During a period of development isn’t it just as likely that it will occur near a rural site as near an urban site ? Often, rural sites attract more development funds than urban sites because people prefer them for work and home life.
Likewise developmental changes that result in lower temperatures would also average the same over time for rural and urban sites so one would indeed find some urban sites with short term cooling outcomes until other subsequentr warming developments offset it once more.
So the problem here is the false distinction between rural and urban. That distinction matters not a jot because what matters most is the actual changes that occur at each site whether urban or rural and the splitting of the sites into those two groups does nothing to separate out sites that are affected by incremental (rather than absolute) development from sites that are not affected.
Anthony, I will take you up on your advice to ‘go fish’… given BEST, why given Fall et al… is the assertion any more….. credible? Just sayin.
A. Watts 2010: “Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century.”
Theo,
One of the four papers is devoted to that subject.
Earth Atmospheric Land Surface Temperature and Station Quality in the
United States
http://berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Berkeley_Earth_Station_Quality
@Leif Svalgaard
“I do not buy the lame argument that the text is the property of the reviewers and cannot be published without their consent.”
#include <ianal.h>
From a legal standpoint, it is ridiculous. Copyright in a “work for hire” belongs to the customer who paid for the work to be done, not the writer. The act of reviewing a paper for a journal should be interpreted as a “work for hire” under any sane reading of the facts and circumstances.
Anthony,
Your honesty is refreshing, but your hypocrisy is astonishing. You cannot criticise BEST for not observing normal peer review process when what most of what passes for science in contrarian quarters is never peer reviewed and never published in reputable, specialist, scientific journals (i.e. Energy and Environment, Nature, and Science do not count).
Can you honestly say that you can look at that portion of the BEST instrumental record since 1960 and not be in anyway concerned about the clear accelerating warming trend? Rather than thrashing around like fish out of water trying to prove some causal link between this and sunspots, solar flares, cosmic rays, volcanoes, water vapour, etc., etc., why can you people not accept that the most obvious explanation is the right one? I’ll give you a clue: Petet Jacques et al (2008) ‘The organisation of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental scepticism’, in Environmental Politics volume 17(3) provides the answer.
Dr Muller may not yet have admitted that he was wrong to accuse MBH98 and the Hockey Stick Graph of being a fraud (i.e. “hide the decline” referred to the removal of post-1960 tree ring data that declined when the instrumental record showed temperatures to be rising), but at least he has now accepted that global warming is accelerating not slowing down. He has therefore knocked-over the first of what I will call, for the purposes of passing moderation on this website, The Six Pillars of Climate “Contrarianism“:
1. Global warming is not happening.
2. Global warming is not man-made.
3. Global warming is not significant.
4. Global warming is not necessarily bad.
5. Global warming is not a problem.
6. Global warming is not worth fixing.
(See Henson, 2007, p.257).
Anthropogenic climate change is happening; it is not a false alarm, scam, or hoax. It is not anti-Western, anti-Capitalist, anti-progress, or anti-human; and it is not a UN-WMO-IPCC conspiracy to install worldwide socialist government. However, it is a consequence of unrestrained and ill-considered fossil fuel consumption and of unsustainable development. As such, delaying doing something about it is utterly short-sighted and counter-productive. In the long-run, the later we try and tackle the problem the harder it will be to fix. It is perfectly analogous to getting into debt and not making any attempt to pay off your creditors.
The sooner you people accept this the better it will be for all of the Earth’s inhabitants.
REPLY: I went through peer review with Fall et al, before announcing the final results of our siting analysis.So did O’Donnell et al with refuting Steig’s Antarctic warming statistical fabrication. Both papers were published in reputable journals, so your demeaning claims about skeptics not publishing in ” reputable, specialist, scientific journals” is falsified.
Why didn”t BEST put peer review before PR?. Simple question. They told me when I visted they would “do it by the book” which is why I embraced it. They they threw out the book in favor of a PR blitz. You seem OK with that, and I think that says more about you than it does me, especially when you complain about skeptics publishing.
As for being concerned about trend since 1960, have a look at the trend since 1800, since BEST went further back than any of the global temperature metrics. they have made a unique window. How would the trend from 1800 to 1900 be so strong prior to the CO2 forcing everyone is looked at? It is very important to note that BEST ascribes NO CAUSE to the trend, and specifically avoids the AGW question in their papers.
Also, why does the data for land diverge from the oceans if UHI and other land based human influences have no effect? – Anthony
Joeseph Daleo and Anthony Watts, 2010
“Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that IT CANNOT BE CREDIBLY ASSERTED THERE HAS BEEN ANY SIGNIFICANT “GLOBAL WARMING” IN THE 20TH CENTURY.”
peter, peetee, and all recipients of grants for Obama’s “green jobs training program”, of course including those already occupying these transformational “green” jobs but paid for by the other usual sources:
I, too, hope that the climate system is warming, I really do, because the alternatives place us in a position closer to global cooling! But to support my wishes, I’m not going to merely repeat the same faux science and “latest, same as the earliest” unhinged propaganda tactics and memes intended to deliver the world’s populace into the maw of the same kind of greedy, looting and controlling Totalitarian throwbacks who are apparently paying you for your “green job” role in the repetition of this “latest” meme. Because their/your alleged cure is obviously worse than your alleged disease, and when it comes to further evaluating the climate according to this “alleged disease-alleged cure” metric where the rubber meets the road, I think it’s pretty clear by now that “2.5 billion Chinese and Indians can’t be wrong”.
In other words, I prefer real scientific “credibility” and “significance” to support my desire for the world’s climate system to be warming, and thus to possibly wake up someday surrounded by Palm trees and Girls Gone Wild.
So if you could please just get Muller and the BEST program to finally practice real scientific method and principle science instead, it would be of great help to me!
Anthony, from your reply to Martin Lack above
“Also, why does the data for land diverge from the oceans if UHI and other land based human influences have no effect? – Anthony”
LOL!!!
Because land air temperature is EXPECTED to warm faster than ocean surface temps! This is Meterology 101 Anthony!
A. As the GH Effect increases due to AGW, more back radiation occurs. So land and ocean absorb more radiation. and thus could warm more. However additional energy being absorbed by the ocean can be (and is!) transported into deeper water away from the surface. In contrast heat conduction down through the land is orders of magnitude smaller.so the land surface isn’t able to sequester away additional energy and as a result this heat is available to heat the air over the land more. So if total radiation striking the Earth’s surface increases, land air temps must increase faster.
B. One of the central aspects of the Climate/Weather systems is that energy is transported from tropical regions to higher latitudes via the major circulation patterns in the atmosphere – Hadley Cells etc. So if the total heat in the system is increasing due to AGW, this will tend to be concentrated more at higher latitudes. And more of the Earth’s land is at higher latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. So we expect to see greater warming there.
So a fairly obvious question comes to mind for me Anthony. Did you start the whole surfacestations.org thing, discussions about UHI etc because you thought greater warming over land than oceans NEEDED explaining?
Great Caesar’s Ghost Anthony! It is one thing to be critical of something – that is your right. But surely you if you are going to find faults in something you need first to ADEQUATELY understand the thing you are critical of. Particularly if you are then going to set yourself up as a commentator on the subject.
REPLY: Oh please, seriously? You are reading way too much into one offhand question dashed off to a troll as if that question was the holy grail. There’s a whole bunch of stuff you left out yourself. Point is that my current data (which Muller does not have) shows UHI has an effect on trends, and I’m very close to proving it. Unlike Muller et al, I don’t blitzkrieg the press before the paper gets peer reviewed. Check back in a few months, and no I’m not going to explain it to you now.. – Anthony
So Anthony.
That would be ‘I am in the habit of flinging off incorrect statements when I don’t like people who put me on the spot’. Troll indeed? How about someone simply calling you to task? Radical thought Anthony: People who point out that you might be wrong about many things may not be ‘Trolls’. They may actually offering you a way out of the corner you seem to have spent several years painting yourself into. But the regulars here, they just love it. “Keep on painting Anthony, we’re here in the corner with you man!”
REPLY: I don’t need a way out. Like I said, check back when the paper is published, I look forward to your comments then. – Anthony
[SNIP: The world wondered when TCO would reappear. If you want to be a contributor, fine. Snark like this will be snipped. Your choice. -REP]
Given the zero or declining temps since 1900 at 600 continuous US sites shown in the guest post by Michael Palmer, University of Waterloo, Canada, that just went up (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/24/unadjusted-data-of-long-period-stations-in-giss-show-a-virtually-flat-century-scale-trend/#comment-776101), you might want to begin to perhaps possibly considering maybe tempering your de rigeur pro forma protestations that you accept that (significant) warming has occurred since the LIA.
The author’s record shows a bump in the 1920s to 1940s, and another one recently, but that’s it, and the net change/trend is zero to negative.
“The slight upward temperature trend observed in the average temperature of all
stations disappears entirely if the input data is restricted to long-running stations only, that is those stations that have reported monthly averages for at least one month in every year from 1900 to 2000. This discrepancy remains to be explained.
Anthony, in replying to my earlier comment, I am not sure what you think re-posting the graph achieves. However, if you are rebutting my focus on the steep incline on the graph since 1960 by questioning the less steep and oscillating part of the graph prior to that, then I am afraid I am bound to conclude that, as a former TV weatherman, you are now getting desperate to defend your “anything but CO2” hypothesis.
As I have said in response to Pat Frank and Smokey’s comments on your previous post, you people seem to lack (no pun intended) the ability or willingness to see what we are doing to our planet in its proper geological context: When everyone from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists to the Zoological Society of London agrees that anthropogenic climate change is happening, is serious, and needs to be minimised, I am afraid that you have to be a fantasist, conspiracist, or Supreme Being to believe that they are all wrong, or lying to you, and/or that you know better.
P.S. Is everyone who challenges your belief system on this website automatically labelled as a “Troll“?
REPLY: No just condescending writers of denial handbooks that refer to others as “you people”. Sheesh. And please as a book writer you must be getting desparate when you say I have a “anything but CO2” hypothesis. Citation required or retract. WUWT has plenty of articles on the effects of CO2. You’ll be in the troll bin (with extra moderation applied) unless you can provide a citation where I claim such a theory. I don’t generally extend full privilege to someone who who put words in my mouth I have not said or written. – Anthony
Is that the Stephen Wilde who is a fellow resident of Cheshire in the UK and a fully-qualified Solicitor; now world-famous for posting non-peer-reviewed critiques of conventional climate science on websites such as Climate Realists? As they say, Stephen, “don’t give up your day job…
Anthony, by putting “anything but CO2” in quotations I was not actually implying you have ever said this. I was (as I am sure you realise) just characterising you position as seeking to explain what is happenng by any other means than accepting human activity s the main cause. As for the remainder of your comments, I am not sure what you are on about, as I have not yet written any books (just an MA dissertation on “Climate Change Scepticism in the UK“), but thanks for crediting me as capable of such – I will take it as a complement on my writing ability.